I Now Have A Name For What Used To Happen To Me.

The twilight and early morning hours of my life, for as long as I can remember are now falling into place.

I think the earliest episode of this is when I was around 8 or 9. I had been frightened by ET early that week, or possibly day. I headed off to sleep, scared, with my parents. But after a few lazy eyed moments in bed, I manned up and got my pillow and walked hallway to my room. I was staring at my feet, because I was afraid of the dark at the time. Still drowsy, I looked up and saw a blue glowing ET. Glowing like Obi-wan from star wars. Ghost like. It didn't move, and was my height. I dropped my pillow, turned and bolted back to my parents bed. They calmed me down, and I started to go to sleep again, then I started seeing things that would actually qualify as frightening. All-ways bi-pedal and in the room, only on one side of the bed at a time. I did the roll-over and ignore game for a bit, until they got closer and appeared more menacing. I remember begging my parents to turn the lights on for the rest of the night, which they would not do. Eventually, I fell asleep from exhaustion and that was that.

After that for the rest of grammar school, I would maybe once or twice a month get a buzzy-white-noise thing in my ears as I was going to sleep... sometimes with a feeling of increased pressure and intenseness in the room, behind me (I sleep on my side). I learned quite fast I had to act on that and roll over to face whatever it was down. There was never anything there if I manned up and looked, and the sensations would dissipate quickly. I say dissipate because they would not simply vanish, but would progressively fade away over 10 or 15 seconds. When I did not, I would spend hours terrified by whatever currently scared me the most. Generally some sort of exorcist girl / ring girl. Never actually seeing or hearing one, just fearfully of the pressure behind me.

Once in a great while I would really get hallucinating. I would wake up in the middle of the night to absolutely knowing that something else was there with me, and that it was bad. Very bad. When I could see them, they all were generally sort of demonic figure (that is an expression, to describe the Gothic and macabre things my mind made up, I am not spiritual or religious. At all.). At first, these also frightened me, and I would spend nights awake afraid of them. After a few times though, I made a vow to myself I would not be afraid of them. I found that I could make them disappear by focusing my hate and at them. I would be in bed, looking at them (all the while they would do creepy things or just hang there) and i'd work myself into a tooth-grinding fuming rage. I think that it was helpful because the focused anger sobered me up from the state.
They ended maybe sophomore year in high school.
I had no such experiences for many years after.

Then, in college I had the most terrifying experience of my life. I woke up, still paralyzed except my eyes. Not the first time, generally you force yell at yourself to move until you do. As long as you keep your head its all good. After a moment, I recognized something else. I felt there was something else in the room with me. Instantly I knew where it was and I looked. There was a pale, naked, gender-less shade grinning at me from the door to the hallway. It had way to many teeth, and it's mouth grinned impossibly wide. It had no eyes. No sockets. Just slits for a nose. It crab walked on the wall, then ceiling over to me, but its head stayed level and focused on my the whole time. I felt terror for the first time in who knows how long. Finally I could move, but sluggishly as it hung directly over me. As it pounced at me, I reached for it and what I remember is choppy. It was swearing at me in my own voice the whole time, but in that faraway treble-y sound you hear on recordings. We had a fight. It kept trying to choke me and bite me, but at one point I remember breaking its leg with a straight kick to its knee. I mounted it and my mma experience took over. I remember beating its face long after my hands had gone numb. Either I would kill it, or it would kill me. I don't really remember how it ended or waking up. It was more like coming too. I was living room floor hurting all over, far from my bed, tripped up over one of my larger amps. I had ground my teeth so hard I could taste the iron of blood I'd drawn.

I have had no such hallucinations of that magnitude prior or since. But once in a blue moon, I get opening feelings again.

I guess its perverse, but when I get that feeling. Right before I got to sleep or if I wake up at an odd hour, when my body starts to tingle all over and the fear starts to set in, I force myself to dominate everything else I feel with another feeling. I ride it down with what I would call malice. I reason with myself: By default I am more terrible than any evil I can create, so I should fear nothing I imagine. Rather It should be the other way around.

Anyways, thats my experience with these things. It felt good to get that off my chest. I'm not in the habit of sharing things that are crazy sounding.

Part of me is (oddly) jealous. I know a nightmare can't equate with the experience you have had but when I was a kid I used to get nightmares about dying in a myriad of ways and in the end I seem to have repressed them to the point that now I don't (maybe one a year?) remember my dreams at all. I don't miss the horror but I miss all the other kinds of dreams. I am left with some over-romanticised idea that they are helpful with creativity and self-insight and that not having them is partly responsible for my schizoid thinking. However, your experience is making me doubt whether I want such intense fear back in my head. If only I could guarantee that every vivid dream would involve shamanistic journeying or Jessica Alba...

i've gone threw much similar experiences myself. Whenever i get the feeling that something else is in the room, i always imagine a girl, like the one from the ring. So, i never look, unless i'm not facing the wall. ever since i can remember, i've always been terrified of this girl. talking about it now feels good. and you're right, no matter how much you know it's fake, it's absolutely the scariest thing atm. even when you're going threw it telling yourself it's not real, it makes you wonder why you're even thinking about it in the first place. i think that maybe this girl is always in the back of my mind & when i'm in bed, i'm relaxed enough for her to become more real.

Maybe I was not clear, Rage and Anger are not what I feel A7XBear, I feel fear that escalates. The fear spirals out of control, as anyone who has had these probably knows, the longer you think about it. My way of dealing with these things was simply to mentally work myself into a frenzy. Whereas some people try to force themselves to move over time, I try to snap myself out of it by fuming at myself that "I'm better than this" and that i'm not afraid of any fake-*** demon. And to clarify aswel, that fight was all in my head. I had no injurys related to it after. All my pain was caused by tripping over a fairly large bass amp and falling (I suppose) face first onto hardwood floors. I'm fairly lucky I missed the Brick Fireplace.<br /><br />As for you Crookedman, I used to think the first episode with the aliens and my parents bed was just my child's mind making things up. <br />The pressure & buzzing episodes just me being afraid of the dark or something, still normal: (as I never actually saw anything at that stage). I mean, in the middle of the night if you are still and try to focus on hearing something you actually do hear white noise (blood rushing?). So I just chalked it up to that.<br />By the time I was having hallucinations I was well read enough to know that they were hallucinations. I had no idea about the Hypnagogic side of them, That word is something I have discovered (by chance, reading something unrelated) over the past 36 hours. <br />For some reason, I always thought the parallelization aspect of it was unrelated, sort of like when you wake up after sleeping on your arm and its dead-weight-limp for a while. I just figured it was a bad case of whatever caused that. A little ironically, with all the rational thought I tried to apply to it, it never occurred to me that the two were part of the same problem.<br />And no, after the alien night I never once felt they were real. Even then I might not have. But trust me, knowing they are not real only helps afterwards. During them, they are mindbogglingly terrifying and sometimes it takes every once of believing in yourself (and a pep talk in your head) to overcome it. Even though you know that there is nothing there.

You mention that you now know what such hallucinations are called, what did you think before? It must have been terrifying when you were younger - perhaps thinking they were real? It's weird what vivid things the brain can do to us. And, just to say, some beautifullyworded sentences in your 'story'.

I get the tingling feelings/sensations as well, but... I don't feel the rage and anger that you feel, I feel more fear. I do end up looking at what I think is there but see nothing. I haven't had it as bad as you yet though, fighting something...

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